In an era in which “PG-13” and “Stephen King” readily evoke tired, lethargic sighs of dismissal without one another’s aide given the cardinal trait of dilution for the sake of teen ticket sales in respect to the former and poor cinematic translation as well as auto-plagiarism with the latter, Swedish director Mikael Håfström commits the rarely seen act of putting forth effort as his energies manifest themselves in a doubly-surprising feature, 1408. Without recourse to trite scare tactics, gratuitous gore, or the easy route of making his viewers ill at ease by having his characters scream at one another for the duration of the production, the filmmaker masterfully creates and sustains nerve-wracking tension throughout as he presents an artful, well-made feature which makes the genre proud.
Mike Enslin (John Cusack), a hardened cynic after the death of his young daughter, makes his living by exploiting the cult demographic of haunted house reporting. After two texts on the paranormal, his foremost pleasure is dispelling fabled locales’ haunted legacies while nonetheless promoting them for his own personal gain. His career leads him to the Dolphin Hotel in New York where, in Room 1408, 56 people have purportedly died since 1912. The hotel’s manager, Gerald Olin (Samuel L. Jackson), refusing to admit that his reinforcement of the room’s plagued history is an attempt to increase business and believing that the writer will depart under the course of an hour, permits Enslin to take residence in the murderous abode despite his apprehension.
Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski–the writing duo responsible for such works as Milos Forman’s Man on the Moon and The People vs. Larry Flynt and Tim Burton’s Ed Wood–alongside the talents of Matt Greenberg, whose credits include the scripts for Steve Miner’s Halloween H20 and Greg Spence’s The Prophecy II, join pens to create a hybrid of Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1944 play, “No Exit,” and Harold Ramis’s Groundhog Day, replete with a paradoxical twist of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. However, don’t permit the citation of the latter to imply that the proceedings are subsequently diluted in respect to their ability to frighten, for the combination of the former coupling, deprived of the levity of Ramis’s famed comedy, results in nothing less than Stephen King’s nightmarish interpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s theory of the Eternal Recurrence.
Much like the aforementioned Nobel Prize-winning (and rejecting) French philosopher, Håfström encloses us in a room before proceeding to unleash Hell upon us. For the character of Enslin, it is a combination of Sartre’s cruel inclusion of personal, emotional tortures by way of haunted memories atop literal physical and psychological torment. Much like Robert Wise’s The Haunting, the director closes the chasm that the suspension of disbelief in horror typically opens by permitting his justifiably skeptical viewers to see their own reflection in the cynicism of the central character (while making the character amiable by way of his caustic wit). However, in so doing, this allows the filmmaker to engulf us in unrelenting dread once Enslin’s doubt is broken as reel time gives way to real time. Yet, as more than one critic has previously attested, just as we pause, thinking that Håfström has lost focus after our clocks prematurely stop, he trumps the situation at hand as only King would have it as we are once again plunged back into the horrific fray.
Granted, Håfström implements the standard metaphor of a haunted residence as a character’s personal demons made manifest, it is the manner in which he compresses his narrative after breaking our distrust of the authenticity of the events we are witnessing onscreen that makes for a truly terrifying outing. By permitting Cusack to take center stage after being confined to an ominous room (made all the more eerie given its innocuous appearance), there is little to distract us from our present dilemma as the director proceeds to eliminate any route for even the slightest, most fleeting, reprieve. It is during such instances that the filmmaker presents a very intriguing, yet thoroughly plausible, argument as to why one might “unintentionally” (no sarcasm intended) throw oneself from a window.
And yet, he manages to evoke very real horror and anxiety in his audience by exploiting our common fears, a seemingly logical methodology for a horror director but one which seems to be all but forgotten since the days of Alfred Hitchcock. Håfström does so without arbitrary recourse to undue bloodletting, bursts of volume, or mundane “boo” moments as he, ever so shockingly given today’s practices, instead incorporates pacing, story, and characterization in order to fashion, compound, and sustain terror. Not surprisingly, the filmmaker’s aesthetic route proves to be very effective.
Sure, one might take issue with Håfström appeasing mainstream audiences by unequivocally answering the question of Enslin’s sanity by film’s end yet, as many critics (especially those born and bred in academia) fail to ask in such cases is, “Does it matter?” As hardened reviewers well know, an event, character, etc. should only be integrated into a work of art if it is necessary. Thus, the concern for whether a conclusive answer to the question becomes a moot point once one steps back to realize and accept that the subplot is of no seeming relevance after the fact, having successfully served its purpose as a narrative means-to-an-end. In this respect, there is more than one road which will take us to Rochester and, moreover, an equal or greater number of reasons to go to the city.
Which brings us to the point of the film. Mikael Håfström’s 1408 sets before itself one simple agenda in a day and age when just one goal, however seemingly straightforward, oftentimes proves to be too much of a challenge: To scare the ever-loving hell out of its viewer and do so by more refined means than what has become accepted genre protocol since the rise of the Slasher film in the early 1980s. By sharing more in common with the classic periods of the Silents, Golden Age, and Sci-fi epics of yesteryear than post-Hammer Horror filmmaking, Håfström’s admiration, understanding, and employment of aesthetic tact and respect for his audience is a refreshing, albeit terrifying, breath of fresh air during an era in which we are suffocating in the quagmire of tired, often ineffective, blood and flesh.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
